The Basque Government has created the Alokaplus aid to cove…

Alokaplus aid program will guarantee rent, utilities, and damages caused to the home for private owners who rent in stressed areas, for 14 or 20 months. The Minister of Housing and Urban Agenda, Denis Itxaso González, signed the Order of October 16, 2026, which was published in issue number 206 of the Boletín Oficial del País Vasco on October 28, 2026, with official reference 2026/4524. The regulation enters into force the day after its publication, on October 29.

The context is not empty. Following the COVID-19 emergency, state and autonomous community regulations chained measures for the protection of tenants: the suspension of evictions for vulnerable households without alternative housing, the extraordinary extension of rental contracts, and the designation of stressed areas to curb rent increases. These measures increased protection for tenants, but indirectly created reluctance for many owners to rent their homes, which has aggravated the housing emergency in the Basque Country.

The program was not created from scratch. The Government Council approved the Alokaplus – Secure Rental Program brand on June 9, 2026, and it was made known through Resolution 78/2026 in the August 12 issue. Later, through the order of September 7, this aid was included in the Strategic Funding Plan for Housing and Urban Agenda 2025-2028.

What the aid pays for

The aid extends to three concepts: non-payment of rental rents, damages caused to the home by the tenant through fault or negligence, and utility bills advanced by the owner. Payment does not start upon the signing of the contract, but rather from the moment the court accepts the processing of the lawsuit to recover the home and terminate the contract; that is, from the beginning to the end of the judicial procedure.

As a general rule, the maximum duration of the aid is 14 months. This limit increases to 20 months when the tenant’s profile is vulnerable: being 35 years old or younger, being over 65 years old, being a single-parent cohabitation unit, or being a cohabitation unit that includes minors or people with functional or psychological disabilities.

Who can receive it and what conditions must be met

The call is addressed to private natural persons, and the Order has specified these conditions:

Being a natural person with the legal capacity to sign a rental contract and owning a maximum of five dwellings.
Being up to date with tax and social security obligations with Public Administrations.
Not being subject to any of the prohibitions for receiving subsidies set out in Law 20/2023.
Having filed a lawsuit for the recovery of the dwelling in court and having the lawsuit admitted for processing.
Attaching to the contract a commitment document signed by both parties, according to the model in the annex of the Order.
The dwelling must be located in a municipality with a stressed housing market and the rental price must be fixed according to articles 17.6 or 17.7 of Law 29/1994.
The deposit and contract must be stored in the autonomous community’s rental deposit registry, when Decree 42/2016 so requires.

The application must be addressed to the Directorate of Housing Planning and Operational Processes, within a period of six months from the admission of the lawsuit, or within a period of three months after it has been verified that ownership of the dwelling has been recovered. The resolution must be notified within three months, and in the case of administrative silence, the application will be considered rejected; otherwise, an appeal may be filed within one month.

Amount and budget

The maximum monthly amount cannot exceed the rent and its updates specified in the contract, nor exceed the price limit of the state rental reference system corresponding to that house. When that system is not applicable, the maximum monthly amount will be 95 percent of the average monthly rent of the last publication of the Rental Market Statistics. In addition to the non-payment of rents, damages and unpaid utilities are added to the calculation.

This year’s budget is limited: 250,000 euros have been allocated among the Housing Department’s credits for 2026. In the future, this amount will be published in the official gazette annually during the first three months of the exercise. If the credit is exhausted, no further aid can be granted and the exhaustion will also be announced; however, requests that were denied due to lack of funds despite meeting all conditions may be resolved in the following exercise, provided the applicant expresses the will to maintain the request.

The aid is not compatible with any other aid that may be granted for the same purpose by any other administration or public or private entity, nor with indemnities from rental non-payment insurance contracts. If aid for the same dwelling has been granted more than once within four years, it will be grounds for denying the second one.

Management and appeals

Management corresponds to the Directorate of Housing Planning and Operational Processes, and a continuous result procedure will be used. The tenant also participates in the mechanism: through the commitment document attached to the contract, they assume the obligation to return to the Administration the amounts collected by the owner, should the regulation be invalidated or revoked.

The owner is also given the opportunity to increase the aid within three months after recovering the property, to pay for the interval from the first day following the end of the period included in the initial resolution until the day the property is recovered. Supply invoices and additional damages must be documented.

Impact

The effects of Alokaplus go beyond covering the owner’s risk. By bringing private housing into the formal rental market of a stressed area, the rental price remains linked to the limit of state indices, and the contract is reflected not only in the property registry but also in the trust registry. This provides administrations with a monitoring tool over rentals already in stressed areas, and has a direct impact on people who have difficulty obtaining housing in municipalities that offer few rentals, such as young people and single-parent families.

Source: Official Gazette of the Basque Country, no. 206, October 28, 2026, Part I (general provisions), official reference 2026/4524.